down.
Without warning, the demon—Sin, he’d called himself—reached back and slashed fiendish black claws across the mesh wires separating them. His massive fist shot through the jagged opening. Then that claw-tipped hand wrapped around her forearm. The world around her blurred, and she had an intense sensation of falling. Her stomach pitched into her throat as bright color swirled around her. Images and sensations assaulted her, here and gone too fast for her to register.
* * * * *
Sebastian raced after the sedan. He’d recognize that face anywhere. Her image had haunted him since the moment he’d first laid eyes on the picture he’d pilfered from her home, the picture still tucked inside his right hip pocket.
Phoebe Mackenzie had beaten on the rear window as the sedan pulled farther and farther away. Her lips had been moving. He hadn’t needed to hear her words. The look on her face said it all.
She was in trouble, and she knew it.
The car was moving too fast, swerving too erratically for him to lock onto it and shimmer inside. He was more likely to solidify in the trunk, or in the engine block, than on the seat beside her. All he could do was follow behind and hope he could catch up before the Carpathï—a species of demon with the ability to change forms, otherwise known as skin-shifters—who’d taken her could shimmer away with her.
He just wished he knew the identity of the demon driving. That might give him some clue as to where they were headed. Maybe. Though he had a sneaking suspicion. He just prayed he was wrong.
As fast as he was running—yeah, he was probably garnering all kinds of attention that he shouldn’t be—despite the traffic slowing the sedan, Sebastian was losing them.
Damn it all to hell.
They soon came upon an intersection…one it didn’t appear the professor’s abductor had any intention of slowing for. Sebastian spied a motorbike, its driver waiting for the light to change. Keeping all his attention on the speeding sedan, he pounced. Without breaking stride, Sebastian displaced the stunned motorcyclist and was burning rubber on the pavement.
Concrete soon gave way to pitted dirt as the sedan turned off the main highway leading out of the city. After a few harrowingly close calls with oncoming traffic, they tore into a small village. Carts and people, squawking chickens and excited dogs soon cluttered the irregular cobblestone road. The sedan barreled around corners, unmindful of pedestrians, traffic, or who had the right of way, and Sebastian kept pace.
Impoverished buildings whizzed by right and left now. Sebastian paid them little heed, his single-minded focus locked on that sedan. But then an ancient, rusted out truck with poultry-filled wire cages stacked in the back lumbered onto the road in front of him. The bike teetered beneath him for a moment. Sebastian kicked at the ground for balance as the rear wheel fishtailed. Dust and feathers billowed up all around him.
He craned his neck as he revved the motorcycle and launched around the rear of the truck. He watched, helpless, as up ahead, the car careened into the front of a stucco shack. Clumps of dirt, clouds of dust and stucco flew through the air as the sedan came to an abrupt stop.
Sebastian tore onto the scraggly yard and vaulted from the still sliding motorcycle. He rushed to the car and tore the back door open, ripping it from its hinges. But even as he did so, he knew he was too late.
The car was empty.
He didn’t waste time swearing or cursing his piss poor luck yet again. Sebastian closed his eyes, centered his focus, pulled in his abilities, and opened his senses.
He didn’t yet know the name of the demon that had taken her. Or where they were going. Hell, he could be headed straight into a trap for all he knew. He didn’t give a flying rat’s ass. All that mattered was that he wasn’t going to sit back and let the professor be snatched right out from under his nose. Not when he’d been
Yvette Hines, Monique Lamont